Chapter 59 — The First Step

A/N: Thank you to LordBan, Rubyia, BrySt1, Fernix13, Robin, OldSFfan, LeePacefan, CasJeanne, Musikrulesok, HideLord, HeatherSS1, SoleFaith, Olive, and wsmith for their reviews on the last chapter!

I think a few reviewers have brought it up in the past but I thought I'd readdress it here since House's motorcycle is getting screen-time once more: I don't know if House had a motorcycle before Daddy's Boy or not, but when he tells his dad he bought a motorcycle, he says he got "a new bike" — which leads me to believe that House did own a motorcycle prior to early season two.

Also, posting this chapter in self-celebration...I started working at a hospital today, in real life! Which means hopefully an increase in accuracy! (or so I hope)

The hospital grounds, the university, it was all beautiful at night. Soft lighting dotted the dormitories courtesy of little wrought-iron faux-1800s lamps here and there, the lush green grounds, the new leaves on all of the trees rustling in the warm spring breeze. It was all the more eye-catching from the roof of the hospital, four stories up. I didn't often come up to House's old favorite spot, but with Honeymoon concluding soon and season two forthcoming, the roof was on my mind.

I imagined House would be coming up here to find me soon—Mark was diagnosed, and ready to start battling his AIP. Honeymoon had been a brief affair, only lasting a few days. I'd stayed away from the hospital for the most part, and everything seemed to be going just as it had in the show. Good. Some things didn't need to be altered. Plenty of things didn't need to be altered, in reality.

When I heard the roof access door crack open, I called, "Hey House."

"Wrong."

I turned in surprise. "Zach?"

He ambled up to me, clad in khaki shorts and a Master of Puppets t-shirt, his hair tied back in a bun. It had grown back quickly after he'd cut it following our mob incident. "You weren't answering your phone, so I figured I'd just track down House or Wilson and they'd know where you were."

"Oh shit, I'm sorry. My phone's been dead for hours. Who'd you find first, House or Wilson?"

"No clue where your dad is, but Wilson was in his office. He said if you weren't in House's office, pedes, or the cafeteria, you might be up here," Zach explained, coming to lean on the barrier next to me.

"Good guesses on his part. It's a nice night." I craned my head up. "I wanted to look at the stars."

Zach looked to the sky as well. It was a clear night, crystal clear. The light pollution from Princeton interfered, but it wasn't as bad as it would've been in Harrisburg. Princeton was a lot smaller. "You know any of the constellations?"

"My dad taught me a few." I meant my real father, but Zach would assume House. I pointed. "Orion's belt. Little dipper, big dipper. The basics."

Zach raised his finger next time to mine, drawing it across the canvas of stars above. "Pisces. Aries." I side-eyed him. In answer, he provided, "My mom was real obsessed with star signs for a minute. You know, astrology. Thought it was the answer to everything, like, what fucking moon phase you were in or whatever."

"Your birthday's October 13th, right? What's that make you?"

"Libra."

"And what does that say about you?"

"Uh...something about me craving harmony. Scales and all that. Striving to create equilibrium in all areas of life," Zach rattled off by rote. "When's your birthday?"

"September 27th."

"Then you're a Libra, too. Congrats. You're obsessed with balance."

Wasn't too far off. "I guess I can live with that."

Zach pulled his cigarettes out of his shorts pocket. "Mom always said she was fucked because Leos were the most likely to be addicts. It's all just excuses that people use to escape personal responsibility for the messed up shit that they do." He lit his cigarette and took a deep draw. "That's why I don't subscribe to anything like that. Astrology, spiritualism, any kind of religion or God."

"So, the world is chaotic and any attempt to order it is just used as a crutch to excuse bad behavior?" I asked, tilting my head. "You're starting to sound like House."

"He ain't wrong. There's no reason that anything happens, and whatever control we do have over our lives, that's on us. No one else," Zach said. "But, I didn't come up here to have a debate about life, the universe, and everything."

"Then why are you up here, my dear friend?" I asked, shooting him a small smile.

We'd been practically inseparable since the night of the cardio conference. If we weren't at work together, we were at Zach's apartment either alone or hanging out with Jeremy and Tracy. I was still intensely uncomfortable with the accidental incest couple, but realized that there was really nothing I could do about it. I could tell them, certainly, but how could I possibly explain knowing? Most people don't buy the prophet from the future gimmick, for obvious reasons. There was nothing to be done until Fools for Love came along. Either way, I'd grown fond of both of them, and Zach, well...

Zach was my best friend. There was really no denying that.

"I wanted to run something by you. It's kind of a radical idea," Zach said, pressing a bit closer to me. He took another long drag on his cigarette. "Will you hear me out?"

"Have I ever not heard you out?" I countered, and I pressed closer too. He was warm and smelled like freshly showered dude, with menthol on top. I used to find the smell of cigarettes repulsive, but now? Almost comforting.

He grinned at me, then ashed his cigarette and flicked it off the hospital's roof. "I like you a lot," he admitted. "And not just because we got kidnapped together. Good bonding, yeah, but that's not all of it. I like...you." He pursed his lips, as if in thought. "Let me clarify, I like like you. Big leagues."

My stomach and heart seemed to flutter as one butterfly-filled entity. "Y-you don't say?" I stammered out, a blush creeping up my cheeks. We turned to face one another simultaneously.

"I do say," Zach said, and then he grazed his palm against my cheek, leaned forward, and kissed me.

It was a dim sensation of skin-to-skin, a bit damp. Warm. However, gentle to the point of nonexistence didn't stop it from rattling me. I felt a tremor work through my hands, my heart skip a beat, and those damn butterflies in my stomach were now having a rave, ecstasy included. When he pulled back, I was breathless.

Zach laughed loudly. "I didn't know your eyes could get that wide."

"Sorry, I—that was, uh, it was my—"

Understanding seemed to hit Zach in an instant, and a look of faint horror crossed his features. "Oh shit, was that your first kiss?"

"With—with a guy, yeah. My best friend growing up was gay, you can imagine what happened anytime we decided to play truth or dare at a party—" I was talking way too fast for my own good, apparently trying to keep up with the frantic beating of my heart. "I—you—we—"

"Stop. Take a breather." He patted my back. "Don't hyperventilate, I don't have a bag."

I obeyed Zach, sucking in a few deep breaths and bracing myself against him, clawing into his biceps. "Right, right."

"Wow, you really weren't prepared for that, were you?" Zach asked. "Look, if I'd have known, I would've...I don't know. Been more extravagant about it." His face was suddenly very close to mine. "Second time's the charm?"

I nodded dimly, and he kissed me again, this time with more sensation. I moved my lips against his, not fully sure what to do and feeling so entirely out of my depth it wasn't even funny, but I felt something blooming out of the butterflies, a warm joy spreading through my chest. When he pulled back the next time, I grinned like an idiot.

"That one a little better?" Zach asked with an amused smile.

"Yeah," I answered tremulously. "Uh, there's a question hiding in here you want to ask, right?"

"Of course." Zach dropped down to one knee. "Got to make everything nice and official." He took my hand in his, and I could tell he was shaking with repressed laughter. "Anya, would you do me the honor of being my girlfriend?"

I giggled in spite of myself, and Zach lost his control, chuckling. I sank down to my knees next to him and hugged him tightly. "I don't know how the hell to do the girlfriend thing, but sure. Yeah. I'll be your girlfriend."

"It's okay," he scruffed a hand through the back of my hair and kissed my cheek. "I'll show you the ropes."

The door opened to the roof once again, and Zach and I sprang apart. It's not as if we were actually up to anything nefarious, but our nerves were both alive and paranoid, apparently.

"Don't let me interrupt."

"House!" I perked my head up, jumping to my feet. "Uh. Hi."

"Mr. House," Zach greeted with pseudo-formality.

"Are you two finally going to confess to your canoodling now, or am I still doomed to Anya stammering out something about just being friends every single time I taunt her about it?" House asked, showing next to no reaction to finding Zach and I in an intimate position.

"Canoodling is probably a bit down the road, but I think your daughter just agreed to let me be her boyfriend," Zach provided happily.

"Neat. I also just had an equally naive younger girl agree to date me in spite of my obvious emotional baggage and character defects," House said, narrowing his eyes at Zach, really appraising him for the first time.

"Wait, what?" I exploded. "You? Girlfriend? Functioning? Did Stacy leave Mark that fast? What did you do?" I pestered him with rapid-fire questions, frantic to figure out what had changed to such an extreme that House had started dating someone as early as season one.

"I'm good, but I'm not that good. I'm taking the car home, you crazy kids have fun, and use protection," House said, turning to go.

"Go with him," Zach said, when I stared after House in open alarm.

"But we—"

"Can enjoy the rush of endorphins from our newly formed relationship separately and reconvene tomorrow. I've got to cover an opening shift, so I kinda got to get going anyway," Zach interrupted, scratching between my shoulder blades. "I just couldn't get you out of my head, so I wanted to do this tonight."

On impulse, I jumped forward and kissed Zach again, a little harder this time. "What time do you get off tomorrow?"

"Two," Zach provided, brushing a strand of hair out of my face.

"I'll see you then." One more quick peck on the mouth, and I raced off after House, feeling...giddy? Yeah. That sounded about right. Giddy.

I caught up with House before he hit the elevator. "Zach has to work early tomorrow. I'm coming home with you."

"Leaving the new boyfriend so quickly? I know men are boring, but come on."

"I need time to process. This boyfriend thing, it's new for me. Now tell me who the hell you're dating," I pressed as we entered the elevator.

House just looked at me. "Oh please. You know who."

I grimaced in dread. "You're dating Cameron, aren't you?"

House nodded. "Sure am. Keep that on the DL, though. Vogler may have been impressed by your self-sacrificing idiocy, but a department head doinking one of his employees, he'll be like a rat with cheese."

"I'm surprised you're telling me at all."

"Cameron insisted you had a right to know, and so far the only person I've met in my life more annoying than you is her, so to avoid the shrieking in the future, I folded. Congratulations. You're the first and last to know," House said, hitting the button for the first floor.

"Wilson knows."

"Wilson doesn't count. Wilson knows everything."

"Be careful, or someday he might start charging you for all the therapy sessions," I commented, running a hand through my hair.

"I only have to pay him if I listen to him," House replied.

I just stared at the closed elevator doors in a state of complete disbelief. House and Cameron. Season one. Dating. I tried to track what I could've done to lead to this, and suddenly hundreds of tiny moments popped into my mind, one domino falling after another, and the realization that in canon, they'd been victims of bad timing more than anything else. Whether they would function in a relationship or not was neither here nor there. I had next to no faith it would last, but it didn't change that only a few things had really stopped that train in canon.

It had to crash and burn, and it had to crash and burn fast enough that Chase and Cameron would still find each other. If I could save the two of them...give Chase a chance at real happiness, I had to. Whether that meant keeping he and Cameron together, stopping him from killing Dibala, it didn't matter. I wasn't just here for House. I was here for House, for Wilson, for Chase...Cameron, Foreman, Cuddy...and when Taub, Thirteen, Amber, and Kutner rolled along, I was here for them, too.

I stared at House, worrying my bottom lip between my teeth. "Mark's fine, I take it?"

How could he get together with Cameron when Stacy was around? House certainly hadn't shown any signs of being over Stacy at this point in canon, considering he'd spent half of season two trying to get her to leave Mark for him.

"He's got a lot of physio ahead of him. Why bother asking? You already know."

"House...is uh...is there an opening for general counsel here at the hospital?"

House shook his head, shooting me a bemused look. "No? Vogler put in one of his guys last month. A Jew, no surprise there. It's a wonder Wilson didn't go to law school."

"Ignoring the many different problematic aspects of that statement..." Stacy can't get a job here if there's no job to get. So that's a big problem right there. And the conversation between Cameron and Stacy in Honeymoon in the original timeline...what happened this time around? "Do you really think you're over Stacy enough to be with Cameron?"

Whether Stacy was working here or not, she'd still be coming in three times a week with Mark for his physio and group therapy. She was still going to be present.

And that was dangerous.

"Well, I've been sleeping with her for months, so I'd say so."

"Wait, what? You guys have been sleeping together for that long and you didn't—" I froze. "The HOOKER!"

"Which one?" House asked, clearly already bored of the conversation. The doors opened, and we spilled out into the lobby.

"The hooker I thought you were with when I went to the apartment to confront you about Vogler—I thought you were with a hooker, but you weren't, you were with Cameron!" I pointed an accusing finger at him. "When she stayed while her place was getting fumigated! That's when the unresolved sexual tension resolved itself, didn't it? And you never told me. I'm wounded."

"It wasn't necessary until it evolved beyond sleeping together. According to Cameron. If I had my way it would have continued as secret trysts until either I die or she moved out of her daddy issues phase, but she insisted on this relationship thing," House said with a vague gesture. "Shouldn't you be happy for me? One more step towards normalcy, bla bla bla?"

I stopped House with a hand, turning to face him. "House. You need to consider...Cameron's young. And she's tough, but in some ways she's fragile. And you're..."

"Deeply broken inside?" House filled in with a rueful smirk. "Thanks for the concern. I think I've got it handled. Believe it or not, I have dated people before. Stacy was even dumb enough to live with me for five years, I've obviously got something going for me."

"I'm not saying you don't, but that was before..."

"Stop beating around the bush to spare my feelings. Haven't you figured out by now that I don't give a damn what you think anyway?" House snapped. "If I'm not listening to Wilson, I'm not listening to you. At least he gives me the soft eyes when he tells me what to do, you give me the angry eyes."

"You were with Stacy before your leg. After your leg, you broke up, because it—" I pushed through my desire to not hurt House that time, with a bit of difficulty, "—because it changed you. You're a crippled addict and you bounce back between self-hatred and self-worship, you drink too much, you know the laundry list better than I do. You haven't been serious with anyone since your infarction. Are you over Stacy? Are you prepared to be open enough with someone to date them?"

"Stop!" House begged as we stepped outside. "I have reiterated all of this to Cameron and more. She insists she wants to be with me in spite of it. Will I break her heart? Probably. Actually, definitely. But she wants me because she thinks she can fix me, and I want her because..." he stopped short, and didn't show any sign of continuing.

"You should probably be able to finish that thought." I made for the parking garage, but House grabbed me by the wrist.

"Actually, I lied, we're not taking the car. We'll come get it tomorrow." House spun his cane and pointed towards his parking spot in the employee parking lot. His motorcycle sat there. "It's a nice night, isn't it?"

My bowels turned to water instantaneously. "House, please. No."

"Come on. It's not your first time," House jeered. "Don't be a pussy."

"It's—it's a death trap! And you're high!"

"I am literally ALWAYS high. Lame excuse. Come ooooooooon," House nudged me in the side, then proceeded to make bach-bach-bach noises at me.

"I hate you. But fine." I sighed and doggedly followed behind House as he made his way to Death on Wheels.

House stuck his cane in his holster, sat himself down, and offered me his helmet.

"How kind." I took the helmet from him.

"World's greatest dad, remember?"

"World's greatest brain-damaged dad if we crash."

"You want to give the helmet back?"

I quickly put the helmet on. "...No."

"And even the guardian angel can be selfish. Refreshing." House revved his bike happily. "You're gonna wanna hold on tight. I went slow the first time so you wouldn't have a panic attack, but this time I see the potential entertainment value."

I wrapped my arms tightly around his middle with a terrified grimace. "Why do I put up with you?"

"Because you care way too much about me. I thought we'd clarified this?" House revved the engine once more and slowly backed out of his parking space. "And a-one, a-two, a-skiddly-diddly-doo—"

House peeled out of the parking lot at high speed, and I screamed at the top of my lungs for the first ten minutes of the drive. I quickly realized House was not planning on going immediately home to Baker Street, but rather wanted to just drive around for fun, something we did often in Lola. Which was fine. In Lola. A CAR.

"House, why," I whined from behind him, gripping even tighter.

"You're about to break my ribs, kid," House yelled back over the rush of wind. He slowed down to a much more leisurely pace, and my heart slowed slightly, but not enough to send me out of fight or flight mode. "Lift your head and stop crying into the back of my jacket. This leather's too good for that."

I obediently raised my head.

"Open your eyes," House ordered, and I didn't know how he could've guessed that I had them pinched shut, as he had no way to turn around and look at me.

"But House—"

"Do you trust me?" House demanded, cutting off further terrified screeching on my part. I didn't sense any sarcasm in his voice. For once.

I paused, but eventually answered, "You know I do."

"Then open your eyes."

So I did.

We were roaring along a canal—on a path certainly meant for bicycles and not motorcycles, which terrified me all by itself, but House was only going about thirty at this point, rather than the eighty he'd been rolling along at when we'd first left the hospital. We were far from the faint red lights of the city, and the sky was clear and brilliant, the moon lighting the way for us as we drove along the sparkling river.

My eyes traced over the stars. Pisces. Aries.

"It's beautiful," I managed, voice trembling. "So beautiful you should go, uh, slower. Slower than this."

"Slower than this and we fall over. Then we can be cripples together, wouldn't that be neat?" House did take it down another ten miles an hour in spite of his ribbing.

I stopped shaking after a bit, but every nerve in my body was still alight with adrenaline. However, now it seemed more exciting than deeply jarring and awful. "How long does this trail go on for?"

"It's the D&R Canal Trail. It goes on for seventy-seven miles. You got somewhere to be?" House asked lightly.

"I don't have seventy-seven miles in me. But...no complaints right now."

"For you, that's rare."

I smiled to myself. It was rare that House and I did something like this—spent time with each other outside the trappings of our normal every day lives, which were intrinsically tangled up with one another's. I was used to waking up to him each day, eating most of my meals with him, playing video games with him, scolding him for drinking or being an ass, carpooling, boys nights with he and Wilson. We were around each other constantly, but we so infrequently just...experienced something together.

"This was the season finale," I told House after a great stretch of companionable silence. "Season one is done. We've got a few months break before season two, I think."

"No one's dead yet, so, good on you, champ. It'd be more interesting if you'd racked up a kill count by now, though."

"I'm kinda freaked out about what's coming," I admitted. "My knowledge isn't infallible anymore. Things are changing."

"You're scared," House surmised. "You're afraid you'll screw up."

"Yeah." I loosened my grip on House, as his voice did seem to be growing tighter. I'd probably been low-key suffocating him with how tight I'd been holding on. "Do you trust me?" I asked, parroting back his own question to him.

House laughed. "Not a chance." He glanced at me for just a second over his shoulder, a flash of amused blue eyes. "But it's gonna be fun either way, isn't it?"

"To change the world, start with one step

However small, first step is hardest of all."

SEASON ONE : END